Network Types

Networks may be divided into four different types and categories:

1. Geographic spread of nodes and hosts

When the physical distance between
the hosts is within a few kilometers, the network is said to be a Local Area
Network (LAN). LANs are typically used to connect a set of hosts within the
same building (e.g., an office environment) or a set of closely-located buildings
(e.g., a university campus). For larger distances, the network is said to be a
Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN).
MANs cover distances of up to a few hundred kilometers and are used for
inteconnecting hosts spread across a city. WANs are used to connect hosts
spread across a country, a continent, or the globe. LANs, MANs, and WANs
usually coexist: closely-located hosts are connected by LANs which can access
hosts in other remote LANs via MANs and WANs.

2. Access restrictions

Most networks are for the private use of the organizations
to which they belong; these are called private networks. Networks maintained
by banks, insurance companies, airlines, hospitals, and most other businesses are
of this nature. Public networks, on the other hand, are generally accessible to
the average user, but may require registration and payment of connection fees.
Internet is the most-widely known example of a public network. Technically,
both private and public networks may be of LAN, MAN, or WAN type,
although public networks, by their size and nature, tend to WANs.

3. Communication model employed by the nodes

The communication between
the nodes is either based on a point-to-point model or a broadcast model. In the point-to-point model, a message follows a specific route
across the network in order to get from one node to another. In the broadcast
model, on the other hand, all nodes share the same communication medium and,
as a result, a message transmitted by any node can be received by all other
nodes. A part of the message (an address) indicates for which node the message
is intended. All nodes look at this address and ignore the message if it does not
match their own address.

4. Switching model employed by the nodes

In the point-to-point model, nodes
either employ circuit switching or packet switching. Suppose that a host A
wishes to communicate with another host B. In circuit switching, a dedicated
communication path is allocated between A and B, via a set of intermediate
nodes. The data is sent along the path as a continuous stream of bits. This path is
maintained for the duration of communication between A and B, and is then
released. In packet switching, data is divided into packets (chunks of specific
length and characteristics) which are sent from A to B via intermediate nodes.
Each intermediate node temporarily stores the packet and waits for the receiving
node to become available to receive it. Because data is sent in packets, it is not
necessary to reserve a path across the network for the duration of
communication between A and B. Different packets can be routed differently in
order to spread the load between the nodes and improve performance.
However, this requires packets to carry additional addressing information.